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Fyre Festival

The recent documentary on Netflix is a wild expression of human persuasion.

Billy McFarland orchestrates hundreds, thousands, probably millions to buy into his vision for an exclusive music festival on a Caribbean island.

The only problem is that there was no way they could pull it off.

The infrastructure simply wasn’t there to accommodate the number of people that bought tickets to stay in tents, cabanas and homes. Everyone interviewed in the movie had reason to pause and rethink what they were doing, but no one did until the 11th hour. (Other than the airplane pilot who did call out the lack of feasibility from the start and was promptly released.)

Selling a vision is an admirable strength, but sadly it was used for fraud, personal gain and fame. The raw charisma and persuasiveness was all spent convincing people they needed to be more famous, more luxurious. Convincing people they weren’t enough.

How do you get the people with such skills in jobs where we desperately need them? As educators, administrators, government officials and leaders of community centers.

It probably starts with convincing people that THEY are enough. Because it’s hard to sell that as a vision unless you believe it for yourself.